Publications

This fact-sheet summarizes the key findings of the analysis of the OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina (Mission) of 433 domestic court decisions rendered in anti-discrimination cases from mid-2018 to mid-2021.

The OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina continues to play a vital role in strengthening the country’s ability to foster a sustainable and stable security environment, to strengthen Bosnia and Herzegovina’s governance, and to encourage its consolidation as a democratic society. The Mission supports political and education reform and works to promote and protect human rights of all citizens of BiH.

Overarching Objective: Bolstered effectiveness of law enforcement in BiH to combat serious crime and threats to security. Improved co-operation and exchange of criminal intelligence among the 16 LEAs in fighting organized crime. Improved compliance with EU SOCTA & EUROPOL security threats assessments. Proactive and high-level ILP-driven investigations. 

The OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina produced a factsheet on an ExB project titled: Informed citizens and efficient mechanisms to prevent and fight corruption. The main objective of the Project is to support BiH’s efforts in diminishing corruption by raising awareness of the consequences of corruption for BiH citizens and strengthening the capacity of anti-corruption bodies in corruption prevention.

This policy brief has been prepared based on the document Towards Education that Creates Changes: The report on the analysis of documents regulating primary and general secondary education in Bosnia and Herzegovina – on the path from traditional to contemporary curricula based on student learning outcomes, that has been developed in 2020 by a group of authors, experts in the area of education, who were engaged by the OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina within the project titled “Quality Education through Curriculum Reform” that is run by the OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina with financial support of the governments of the Kingdom of Norway and the Italian Republic.

This is the second public report by the OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina based on the monitoring of human trafficking and related cases completed before courts in Bosnia and Herzegovina. After a review of relevant international standards and the national anti-trafficking legal framework, it examines abilities of the national criminal justice system to: effectively prosecute human trafficking and adequately punish those responsible for it; treat victims with dignity while protecting them from harmful consequences of their involvement in criminal proceedings; and facilitate victims’ right to seek compensation from offenders. The report closes with specific recommendations targeted at several key actors. These aim to improve the criminal justice response to human trafficking in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

PREPARING A WORKSHOP FOR LAW STUDENTS: A brief guidebook with case studies for practical exercises in Hate Crimes, War Crimes and Crimes of Trafficking in Human Beings

It is important to now what is a hate crime. When a hate crime is committed, one or more perpetrators target the victim, which can be one or more people or property, because of a protected aspect of the victim's identity, such as religion or ethnicity, race, sexual orientation or disability. Similarly, a hate incident is an act of hostility motivated by prejudice or bias that does not necessarily reach the threshold of a criminal offence, or the criminal nature of which is yet to be determined. A hate crime is any crime where the perpetrator is driven by prejudice or bias. Criminal offence + bias motive = hate crime

Annex VI of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina envisages the role of the OSCE in monitoring the human rights situation in the country. This provision has served as the basis of the OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina's (the Mission's) human rights monitoring over the past 25 years.